Forum: SCRAFAN.COM Forum (go)
Moderators: ljennings

Thank you to ARP for a very successful evening of racing at Ventura.  18 Sprint Cars with the win going to Greg Taylor. This was the first of four ARP Battle at the Beach $1500 to WIN.  There are now a total of nine $1500 to win nights at Ventura this year thanks to ARP, The Committee and Clark Engineering.  Thank you for all the Support!!!

I thought the quality of racing was really good all night.

Looking forward to the next one. 

I agree will be back for sure

Sure wished there had not been a conflict with 360 WC race at Santa Maria.   Love to see the best non wing 360 drivers meet up at Ventura once in awhile.   If CRA can race ventura, surely they can work something out for WC 360 to join the VRA guys.

I can wish  

common sense says we need more cars . common sense says tracks need to work together . common sense says promoters need to work together . reality , none of the above ..... its getting close to the time where the drivers and team owners need to take action . alternative , no sprintcar racing ! 

Drama , Controversy , Rivalry 

Once again your observations are correct. The solution is not another sanctioning body or touring series. Not yet at any rate. We have to stand back and look at the big picture. I have been trying to do that for several years. Sometimes it is really hard to see the forest for all the trees.

In my opinion we have allowed the sport to become “amateurized”. In any sport, Pro’s play for money. It is their “paycheck”. Some make a living at it, and others would if they could. Everybody else is an “amateur”, “novice”, “sportsman”, etc. They race for fun, learn the sport, and have a hobby that their friends and family can enjoy and participate in at whatever level suits them. Only a few have a goal of racing as a pro, but this is where all pros start. There are also “pro fans” and “amateur” fans. Amateur fans are friends and family of the racers. They pay to watch “their” competitors. They may or may not pay to watch “pros”. “Pro” fans pay to watch the racing. They don’t necessarily have a personal connection to a driver or team, but we should encourage them to do so.

It seems to me that over the last decade or so, the majority of the effort to increase car counts has been this misguided effort to cut costs by reducing performance. We have been trying to sell sprint car racing down market to people who can’t afford to race in the first place (amateur racers). The economy has been bad so some tracks have closed and others have a new promoter every year. Nearly all the tracks left are fairgrounds tracks. Fair boards are starving so they have no money to fix their facilities. Promoters won’t spend money fixing up the fairground’s track that could shut down next month, so the facilities keep deteriorating. Pro racers work hard at finding sponsors but sponsors aren’t interested in spending money on a team that only races 8 or 9 times a year in their market with 500 to 1000 people in the stands. Promoters get no return on money spent advertising so they try to live off the back gate. They can’t sell real advertising so they pursue what amounts to “charitable donations” from wealthy benefactors and companies in the racing industry. Are there any promoters that are making a living off their race track?

If we want to see short track racing survive and grow, we all must accept the reality that this is a business, not a hobby. How can we expect a business to be successful if it is only open one day a week, eight months a year? Would you go to a thrift store to buy new furniture? Would you go out for dinner if the restaurant was in a barn? Would you spend $20.00 each to go see the latest blockbuster, Imax, 3D movie if it was 6 hours long? Would you go to an NFL game if the teams wore street clothes instead of uniforms? Would you enjoy a baseball game if they repeatedly stopped and started the play? Oh wait! That is what they do. How would you feel if you watched a good football game and then after the game the winner was disqualified because the quarterback was 3 lbs under the minimum weight or the ball was under inflated?

A lot has been said on this site about speedway motorcycle racing and in particular the track in City of Industry. Everyone should go to industry speedway and take pictures. Then go to any other motorcycle speedway track and take pictures. If you can’t see the difference that makes Industry thrive while all the others struggle to survive, you are blind. This facility is a lesson in how to keep your fans coming back.

Every short track promoter that wants to be successful must go to the Chili Bowl. It is the most efficient, organized, fun and profitable race I have ever seen. They have been polishing this event for 29 years and it shows. The term “awesome” just doesn’t do it justice.

In my opinion, our only way forward is to be a business. You can’t expect success from a business that relies on donations and volunteers just to survive. Promoters need to decide if they want to run a pro show or an amateur show, or better yet, both. Just not in the same show. Every track needs a regular weekly program. Something like first and third Fridays are open wheel and second and fourth are stock cars. Run the weekly shows on a weeknight so they don’t compete with pro races. Save the Saturdays for pro races. We have to find a way to build more tracks. In particular we need small indoor tracks so we can build a feeder system of quarter midgets, micro sprints, three quarter midgets, mini sprints and midgets to feed the sprint cars. This can be done, but it will take an investment just like opening a machine shop or restaurant. How do you fund it? How about crowd funding? Where do you put it? There are quite a few closed shopping malls that have been vacant for years. Some are owned by the city and some are owned by banks. Use the real estate to drive the crowd funding, build the track in the largest unit or units and rent out the others to racing and automotive businesses. I think a job creator / tax generator like this would be very popular with a city. Larger tracks that won’t fit in a mall need to cover their stands and install “outdoor air conditioning” misters. The cost of this can be paid for by installing solar panels and selling the electricity. Tracks need to operate at least 3 or 4 days a week. Indoor tracks can run year round. There is no solution based on reducing the quality of the show or simply selling more pit passes. The only way to increase purses, get more cars on the track and make a profit for promoters is to put more people in the stands every race with top quality professional racing. All these things require full time attention as a business. They are not a hobby. Lets all stop whining about how bad things are, and start to work on how to make the sport better.

shorttrackautoracing.com

i sit and watch lucas truck racing growing like mad , why ? because its being sold to the public in a way that is attractive to the younger generation . we have to reenergize our shows somehow . its sad to see all the up and coming tallent bypass sprint car racing which has been a staple since men raced . somehow we need to breathe some life back into midget and sprint car racing here on the west coast . 

Drama , Controversy , Rivalry